Wonderful Nature - Thread

[Heart Of Midnight]

Thanks everybody! 

I was outside at three in the morning today and "chased" a large moth with my camera that was fluttering by the flowers. But I didn't manage to reach it. It would be nice to get a picture of them also with the flowers.

[Taffeta]

Yesterday I got heckled by a magpie, who clattered into my window, squawked at me and then flew off.

Meanwhile the baby sparrows are squeaking away and invading every part of the garden they can find. Yesterday they jumped into the marjoram and you couldn't see them except when a head occasionally popped up. They went all over my radishes and through the flower tubs but didn't do any damage.

It's amazing what a little ecosystem a garden is generally, but they seem to be having fun in it at present.

The grape vine is trying to get in my room as per usual. It hasn't quite reached the quarterlight yet but it's working on it.

...As I type this one of the baby sparrows has discovered the buddleia.

[BlackCurtains]

I've been watching a mockingbird doing flips in the air and playing chicken with the cars that go by. At first I thought it was a female that was trying to lure something away from her nest, but after looking it up, it's most likely a male. He might be putting on a show for other males in the area to say that he is awesome and fearless and look at me.

I took some video but of course, he stopped doing the really neat flips after I started filming.

[Heart Of Midnight]

^ Why does it always happen that when you start filming wildlife, they almost immediately stop or disappear?!  That often happens to me too! 

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Some measuring worm was found in the grass yesterday. I almost stepped on it! I took it in my hand for a moment to photograph it and then let it continue on its way among the plantain lilies.

(I hope I have been able to find the correct English names for these species. It's sometimes quite a laborious search.) 

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[BlackCurtains]

Inch worm! They are so cute

[Heart Of Midnight]

Today it happened for the first time..we hit a bird with our car.  It was a mallard (female).
Everything happened so quickly that at first I thought the car had broken down, when after a loud bang my mother braked and stopped on the side of the road. From the side mirror, I could see the road behind and there was a mallard quivering its wings. In the back of the car, I only found a snow brush and some stick, which I took with me when I ran to see the bird. When I got to it, luckily, it was already dead. Its neck was broken. It would have been a really difficult and painful situation if I had had to end that life on the other end of the snow brush with a hard plastic ice scraper! But it would have been necessary to do it if it had remained alive and writhing in pain after the collision.
Now that there is bird flu in Finland, I didn't touch it with my hands. I moved it out of the way into the grass with the help of a snow brush, I checked again that the signs of life had gone out of this beautiful bird and we left sad and still a little shocked towards home.

 

[BlackCurtains]

I'm sorry That's a terrible thing to happen

I'm glad the bird didn't suffer.

[BlackCurtains]

I washed my hands and used the kitchen towel to dry them, then I brushed my teeth. When I set the bottle of mouthwash on the counter, a small huntsman spider crawled out from under the towel. It was just a baby, the size of a quarter. I caught it in my paint water jar that was on the counter and put it outside. I should have taken a picture.

[Heart Of Midnight]

It's wonderful that you are also rescuing these little bugs that came indoors. Many of my acquaintances immediately kill all the bugs they see! I even rescue spiders from the claws of my cats, even though they are so nice to catch.

[BlackCurtains]

The only bugs I kill immediately when indoors are ants, flies and roaches. Depending on the spider, sometimes I will let them stay. If it's a spider that makers a web and is out of the way, that's fine. Hunstman are prowling spiders though so I don't want them in the house.

The other day when I opened my door a very large flying ant fell in the doorway and came inside until I grabbed what was near and pushed it back outside. I did not want it in my house!

[Heart Of Midnight]

Yep, I kill fruit flies, ants, mosquitoes, wasps and bugs that destroy textiles.
(Sometimes I've even let stray wasps out of the bedroom through the open window, if they're just buzzing by the window and not threatening me!)

I'll let the spiders be, too, as long as they don't land on my face. I don't want them to live above the bed because I have experience when a spider has landed on my ear while I was sleeping! Fortunately, I woke up pretty soon to something itching and scratching in my ear! I managed to dig a small spider out of my ear. Unfortunately it didn't survive, but fortunately it didn't have time to make its nest in my ear!
My spouse usually notices the spiders pretty soon and he hates them, but I save them and move them either out of the house or to another room where the cats can't access. (In winter, of course, I don't take the spiders outside, but leave them inside in other rooms to live.)

[Ponybookworm]

I'm the same with spiders. They get free accommodation here. Board is any stray flies, & I have a lot!!! Ordered some flypaper to get them sorted. Roll on the arrival of that!!!

[Beth3346]

i don't usually kill spiders either. unless it's a black widow or if they're in the bed or something. i figure they eat other bugs so we have an understanding my husband will squash them though. sometimes i take them outside. but i worry that some don't belong outdoors. i think some are more indoor spiders. ants and flies will be dealt with though.

i meant to post a while back. but i was sitting on my patio the other day and i think i saw a whooping crane fly by. the only other cranes native to the area i live in are gray and this one was white. it was flying pretty high and i didn't have binoculars so i'm not 100% sure. but since they're super endangered i hope it was.

there's a river close by so I see a lot of water birds fly by. mostly ducks.

also, i put out a hummingbird feeder in April and never saw any hummingbirds drink from it so after a few months i took it down. then the other day i saw a hummingbird in my neighbor's tree. i guess next year i'll put it out later. maybe in July instead of April.

[BlackCurtains]

A small yellow bird flew past my window. I think it was a canary. Never seen one in the wild before.

[Beldarna]

A few pics of this summer.

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This is about 10 km outside of my city, and yes, we could bike here. The temperature and humidity was crazy high this evening, the meteorologists said it was tropical. The humidity made the fire alarm go off twice at the cinema and two other locations.


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This river is right beside the above picture. It is before it comes to my city.


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Blueberries! I'm lucky to live in a country with the Right to Roam (Allemansrätten in Swedish) where I can just go out in the forest, any forest, and pick fresh berries.


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This is from when we were kayaking down a river. It was so beautiful


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This is the river that goes through my city, dividing it in half. We have a walkway right next to it and I live close enough to be able to walk by it whenever I feel, it's also the prefered route to the city center. I always felt it was healing walking by it and I'm not alone. The other day, our local news wrote about a woman who travels six hours by train from Stockholm (that is surrounded by water might I add) just to spend a couple of hours by the river before going back home again and she thinks the river helps her better than her therapist. Pretty neat .